COLOMBIA, Sept 24—After two cops murdered Javier Ordoñez, thousands took to the streets, leading to clashes with the state-sponsored thugs. As crisis in Colombia deepens, the working class needs to reject working within the system and embrace building outside the system: communism.
These demonstrations demand a restructuring of the police, the resignation of the Minister of Defense, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, and the end of political assassinations of social leaders. Demands also include a solution to unemployment, and the annulment of Decree 1174, which is the “most aggressive labor and pension reform in the last 30 years.”
What the spontaneous movement needs is communist leadership to raise the consciousness of workers. Through struggle, our class needs to see how the police are a murderous institution that cannot be reformed. We must understand that it only protects and serves the interests of the ruling class. Only communist revolution can put an end to the present waves of state terrorism against our class and build a new society free from all forms of racist, nationalist, sexist oppression, bosses wars and wage slavery.
Crisis intensifies
This year, we have seen the horrible return of massacres, the racist displacement of communities in fields and cities, the constant threat from paramilitaries, and the increasing murder of social leaders. On top of that, working-class fighters, former FARC guerrillas, peasant, indigenous and Black organizations have experienced this extermination with greater force during the quarantine. Much of this repression is carried out by the military and groups of thugs at the service of the state and local capitalists.
Health, government, and recycling workers and strike committees continue to carry out cacerolazos (demonstrations with the banging of pots and pans) and demonstrations in squares, parks, and public spaces. The protesters call for the dismantling of ESMAD (Colombian anti-riot police), responsible for repression and deaths—like the murder (still unpunished) of Dylan Cruz on November 21, the day of the first national strike. The mass demonstrations are called by community organizations, women’s student organizations and other organizations belonging to the National Unemployment Committee.
The police repression during the demonstrations left at least 14 murdered, more than 250 wounded, and at least 150 shot. The number of live bullet injuries reached 74. Several reports of abuse and rape by the police during the illegal arrests were also recorded. According to the magazine “Noche y Niebla” (Night and Fog), the biggest “human rights” violators in Colombia in 2019 were the paramilitaries and the police. By human rights, they mean violence against the working class.
The repression also had a vigilante character: “sexual abuse, against two detained women, obstruction of information, and even arrests in clandestine centers as evidenced in videos where, in addition, it is proven how the police exchange weapons with thugs in plain clothes, who shoot as a team, and also aim directly at the body of the protesters and beat them while they were defenseless.”
Workers organize against police attacks
Residents of many neighborhoods in the capital and other cities organized to prevent the police from entering their residential complexes, beating, and shooting at people. There are many reports of police infiltration and of having seen plainclothes agents behind the fires of shops and looting. In many videos, the police are seen fleeing attacks from organized neighbors with stones and sticks.
During the protests, more than 30 CAI (Rapid Response Police Centers) were burned or destroyed. Neighbors denounce that these are the “booths” where drugs are traded, and bribes are paid for mafia activities. After the fires, many of these CAIs were transformed into popular libraries and community meeting centers by protesters.
PLP is building a base within the working class as part of our international work. Members of the Party, friends, and readers of our newspaper CHALLENGE are participating in these demonstrations and joining our sisters and brothers who fight for a better society. We discuss and continue to be involved in the class struggle as a way to move forward to communism.